Chapter Twelve
Derek burdon looked across the table at Candida. It was a big old-fashioned affair well furnished with drawers, and with such aids to industry as a large blotting-pad, a massive double inkstand, and plenty of pens and pencils. There was also an old-fashioned portfolio full of papers. He said in an exasperated voice,
‘It’s all very well to say we ought to get on with it, but I ask you!’
‘Do you?’
He laughed,
‘Well, I suppose I don’t really. This sort of thing just isn’t my line of country, you know. Well, I mean to say – is it? The old dears don’t seem to realise that they might just as well expect me to play the cathedral organ or to fly a plane! As a matter of fact I wouldn’t mind learning to fly, but they wouldn’t expect me to do it right away without learning how, now would they?’
She could not help laughing.
‘I can’t think why you took on a secretarial job.’
He laughed too, and in a perfectly carefree manner.
‘Can’t you? I expect you could if you tried. It was a gift-horse, and I couldn’t afford to look it in the mouth. You see, the bother about me is that I’m just no use at earning a living. I haven’t got any vices, but I haven’t got any of the tiresome virtues either. Industry, application, perseverance – you know the sort of thing. They used to put bits in my reports about them. “Lacks application” – that one was always cropping up. My father used to get wild about it, but I don’t see that it was my fault. You don’t have a down on anyone simply because he can’t act or hasn’t got an ear for music. The things just weren’t included in my make-up, that’s all. Now my father was a really successful business man until he came a spectacular smash and went off into the blue in his private plane. No one knows whether he got anywhere or not. Personally I feel sure that he did, and that he had parked enough money abroad to see him through. I was eighteen, and as soon as I had done my military service an uncle with an office shoved me into a junior clerkship, a completely repellent job. You see, I really do hate work.’ He smiled disarmingly.
‘Somebody has got to do it,’ said Candida.
‘Yes, darling, but not me – at least not if I can help it. And of course there are two sides to the business – you have to find an employer who will put up with me. The uncle stuck it for two years – I give him marks for that – but he booted me in the end.’
‘How did you come across the Aunts?’
‘Oh, that was easy. I was in a concert party at Eastcliff – they go down there once in a way to take the sea air – and I had a bit of luck. Miss Cara twisted her ankle, and I carried her to their hotel. After that the job just fell into my lap. They’ve been frightfully good to me, and as a rule I don’t get asked to do anything I can’t manage. It’s this family history business that gets me down.’
‘Why?’
He rumpled up his hair.
‘Well, it’s a bit above my head, you know. There are pieces in Latin, and if there was one thing that I was worse at than the other things, it was Latin. I remember a really frightful row after getting “Doesn’t try” in a report. That was a chap called Masterman. He had a down on me, and I fairly loathed him. One of the strenuous, earnest sort.’
‘I haven’t come across any Latin.’
‘No, darling, but you haven’t got very far, have you? Besides, to tell you the truth, the whole thing gives me the pip. Who cares what people did two or three hundred years ago? They’re dead and buried, and why not let them be? It’s like grubbing into graves and digging up a lot of old bones, and I don’t like it. If you ask me, the whole thing stinks.’
Candida had an odd feeling that something had startled her, but she didn’t know what it was. There was the hint of an uneasy tone in Derek’s voice, the hint of an uneasy look behind the smile in his eyes. He looked past her and said,
‘What I’d like to know is, why have they got so keen about it again all of a sudden?’
Candida echoed his word.
‘Again?’
He nodded.
‘Yes. It was the chap who was here before me who started on it – Alan Thompson. You’ve heard about him?’
‘Yes.’
He waved a hand in the direction of the portfolio.
‘Well, all that sort of thing appealed to him, I gather. They don’t talk about him, you know. He blotted his copybook – went off with the loose cash and some of Miss Cara’s jewellery. A fairly rotten thing to do, don’t you think? And stupid too, because – well, they are most awfully generous, don’t you know? And according to Anna they were pretty well all over him.’
‘Was it Anna who told you about him?’
He leaned across the table and dropped his voice.
‘Well, she did, and she didn’t. She began, and then all of a sudden she dried up, and if there is anything less like Anna than to dry up about a thing before she’s got it chewed to a rag, I don’t know what it is. But she did tell me that he was dead keen on all this old history stuff, and sometimes I’ve just wondered whether his going off like that had anything to do with the Benevent Treasure.’
There was a pause. The sensation of having been startled became definitely one of shock. Candida found that her breathing had quickened. She said,
‘Why?’ The word shook a little.
He spoke quickly too.
‘Don’t you see, it would account for it. Suppose he had laid hands on the treasure and that was what he went off with. Look, I’ll show you something.’
He opened the portfolio and turned a page or two, took out a folded document, extracted from it a sheet of thin modern paper neatly typewritten, and pushed it across to Candida.
‘Here, take a look at that!’
She took it, and would rather have left it alone. There was a heading which took up two lines – ‘Those things carried out of Italy on his journey to England by Ugo di Benevento in the year 1662.’ After that there was a list. It began with, ‘Four dishes richly chased and silver-gilt,’ and went on all down the page. Candida followed it with extraordinary reluctance. There were things like.‘Two salt-cellars with doves – The gold candle-stick reputed to be the work of Messer Benvenuto Cellini – A bracelet with four large emeralds – A set of twelve ruby buttons – A necklace of very large rubies in a border of diamonds,’ and so forth and so on. The items ran together in a dazzle. She lifted her eyes from them and said,
‘What is it?’
‘What it sets out to be – a list of the things that Ugo got away with. I wonder how he managed it. The jewels could be tucked away, but all that plate must have weighed a bit. I wonder if the candlesticks really were gold.’
Candida said,
‘It’s really more to the point to wonder whether they were the work of Benvenuto Cellini. They must be enormously valuable if they were. Of course I could see it was a list of what Ugo carried away – it says so. What I meant was, what is this list and where does it come from? It’s not old.’
He laughed.
‘Darling, typewriters weren’t invented in sixteen-what-ever-it-was. All I can tell you is that I found the list tucked inside a very dull paper about the lease of a farm. And if I’ve got to guess, I should say that Alan Thompson copied it off an older list and put it where he didn’t think anyone would meddle with it.’
‘But why?’
‘Well, if I’ve got to go on guessing, I should say that he probably wasn’t meant to have seen the other list. He may have just come across it and thought it would be nice to have a copy, or he may have been doing a spot of snooping – I wouldn’t know. Or of course it’s just possible that Miss Cara showed it to him. You know, she really was most awfully fond of him, poor old dear. Anna said it fairly broke her up, his going off like that. And of course I can’t help wondering whether he didn’t take the Benevent Treasure or what was left of it along for company.’